


Of An Unforeseen Nature

by nasadog



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, M/M, One Shot, angst?????? is that even a thing, death idk, everything i write is angst, i guess, theoretical and otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:57:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasadog/pseuds/nasadog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Prouvaire knew about death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of An Unforeseen Nature

Jean Prouvaire knows about death. He knows about life, and how there is beauty in madness and darkness and as much as there is in order and light. He knows the way the wind sings mournfully as it swings between branches and he had oft considered the ghosts that it carries with it – did they die in bed, safe, at home? Or did they die at war? Slain? He has poured over such things, as much he has anything else.

Was he dying?

It felt that way.

Jean Prouvaire could watch as the light of his soul was torn - _ripped_ \- from a gaping wound in his chest. His heart was being shredded second by second and he bled out (as so he should), and crimson stained his clothes and his mind. Jean Prouvaire could look upon the face of his beloved – Courfeyrac, yes, who else but Courfeyrac? – as they, together, broke down, facing loss unimaginable. A life without the other, of course, _that_ was unimaginable.

“Jehan-” Ah, yes, there was Courfeyrac’s wrecked voice, and Jehan smiled softly.

“Hush, my love,” he breathed, words a faint whisper, quiet against the sea waves between them.

Courfeyrac choked back a sob, and Jehan had time to look at him. The way his face flushed even now, _oh_ , like it had when they had visited the beach together, and Jehan’s camera had clicked rapid-fire as his love had tried valiantly to skim stones against the tide, and there was a call of _“oh, Prouvaire,_ no _, you caught a bad throw, let me try again,”_ and there had been a violent blaze of rose upon his cheeks as if it was unthinkable he should be documented doing something so futile.

“I love- I love you- don’t leave me…”

“I couldn’t ever leave you,” he promised, and their foreheads were pushed together, and their breath intertwined and Jean Prouvaire thought _this is the last time I will feel his air on my lips_ and his eyes burned with sudden tears. “Not ever.”

And Courfeyrac’s tears were an echo of the time they had vowed to spend eternity together, and their lips had chastely brushed and their hug had been tight and constricting, and the day had been long and the night a thousand times longer. Heat had rushed in through wooden slats across the window and their breaths had been short and desperate, kisses pressed to skin over and over in the dark. _I will love you forever_ seemed to hang, still, in the air.

Perhaps Jean Prouvaire could feel Courfeyrac slipping from his grasp, and perhaps Courfeyrac – stunned – had faltered. But now they cradled eachother closer, each man’s weight holding the other up as they had held each-other up through so many years, and they were young still and had ahd so much ahead of them— Jehan felt the blood pour from his own mouth as if he were guilty. As if _he_ had driven knife through flesh and between bone, and know looked down from some high darkness, some crevice of demons, as two men clung to each-other, both dying as much as the other. But Courfeyrac’s chin was swathed in ruby robes, glistening against the dim evening light, and Jehan’s lips began to quiver.

“Don’t die,” he breathed, almost effortlessly. “Don’t ever die.”

“I… I won’t.”

“You are a liar,” he smiled, despite everything.

Courfeyrac’s hands went tight as Jehan went slack, and then, for the briefest moment, the latter started; hands flew for a hold, and eyes went wide, frightened.

Jehan was stunned, horrified, lost. He couldn’t breathe against Courfeyrac’s blood building up within him, within his soul. He was suffocating.

And he was gone, and Courfeyrac was alone.

Alone.

Entire worlds unravelled around him, and Jehan would have held him, but his body was limp and heavy in Courfeyrac’s arms, and he couldn’t scream. He could only sit in silence and bury his face into Jehan’s short braid, strawberry hair sticking in bloodied waves to both sweat-slick faces, and sob at the scent of fresh flowers bought from the market that morning.

Jean Prouvaire knew about death, but he had not known enough, Courfeyrac saw now. He had not known enough.


End file.
